TLC logo TLC #2:  Feb. 26, 2001



 

Greetings!
 
 
As Del Scharnhorst explained to me, it's okay to put things off so long as you don't procrastinate.
 
I promised not to write often, but the mail brings items of interest to all. I do appreciate feedback and, in particular, items you'd like to see included.
 
Liz Backs Guevel tells me the CLASSES OF '51 AND '52 are working on a joint reunion over Labor Day. So put it on your calendar now. Liz Bertz Fenner and Eileen Mischon Carpenter are in charge.
 
Several people reminded me I didn't mention the Chinese restaurant on Franklin. I was concentrating on "downtown" restaurants, but the China House (as it's now known) is excellent. The Lexington Inn serves a great breakfast but not much in atmosphere. I've heard the Sunday buffet is good too.
 
Barbara Lee '57 Fay reports that her 7th grandchild was born on February 17, my birthday. For some reason the parents are calling Little Susan by the nickname Elizabeth Lee Hennessey.
 
I am going to attempt an attachment, but it may turn out to be a forwarded email - bear with my novice technological skills - from Jack Gueguen. You should follow his lead, and send news. Your reporter would be ever so grateful.
 
Your verbose scribe,
 
Susan
 
From Jack:
 
I don't have any news about Lexington (my last visit was Dec., 1997, when we buried my mom) but in case anyone is interested in my news, I can provide you with the briefest of sketches.  It's 50 years this fall since I embarked upon a higher education (at the quiet behest of Roy B.), and it is still a lively quest.  My days are still spent in the company of many university students, but somehow they seem much more agile than I am.  I can't always follow the strange dialect they speak, but I always manage to find a few who are eager for whatever "wisdom" I've managed to acquire in a 43-year teaching career.  I left the classroom at Illinois State in 1996, but I still teach informally here in my "retirement home"--a large student residents on the U. of Illinois campus (Lincoln Green Foundation), where I serve as "senior mentor".  I'm always giving talks and taking part in conferences here and yon (almost always by public transit as I never did become a skilled driver--in spite of the solicitude of Mr. Grechus).  I even get over to the Univ. Library now and then, but nearly everything I need is here at home in my library-archive, which is fairly well organized.  (If anyone wants to get a summary of its holdings, try my page:  http://lilt.ilstu.edu/jguegu )
    Only 2 years ago, one of the many young computer whizzes here in the residence took it upon himself to drag me into the 20th century just before it expired, and I learned the wonders of these new electronic media.  Now I get a dozen messages a day from colleagues and former students, almost all of them asking for some help with a topic I am supposed to be an expert on (which seems to be anything in philosophy and American studies).  When I get a rare moment to advance my scholarship, it is usually in what I call "philosophy of culture."  (At LHS we must have had some kind of incipient culture, but I didn't discover philosophy until the Notre Dame years.  Although I suppose Ernestine Seiter was something of a philosopher, or at least an intellectual.)
    I also delight in keeping up with the several families I belong to, beginning with the Gueguens of Lexington, who are now scattered all over creation.  Eighty-some of us managed to be all at the same place at the same time last June near KCI.  There is also my much larger academic family, and my religious family within the Catholic Church (it's called Opus Dei).  Mary Pat, Loretta, and I made our pilgrimage to Rome last September, and for a rare week, all 3 "families" came together in a truly marvelous unity.  To put it briefly:  I HAVE BEEN  SO BLESSED!  AND I AM SO GRATEFUL TO THOSE DEAR HEARTS AND GENTLE PEOPLE WHO LIVED AND LOVED IN OUR HOMETOWN!
 
Yours, Jack
 
715 W. Michigan Ave., Urbana IL 61801
(217) 367-6650; fax: 344-2987.
 
I look forward to hearing from anyone who wants to write.
 
 



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